The truth about opium

by William H. Brereton

The Anti-Opium Society and their followers allege that dram-drinking is not only less baneful than opium-smoking, but they say that the latter practice so injures the constitution, and has such extraordinary attractions for those who indulge in it, that it is impossible to get rid of the habit, and that, in effect, whilst drunkards can be reformed, opium smokers cannot. This is absolutely untrue. The reverse is much nearer the mark. The effect upon the system of constant spirit drinking, leaving actual drunkenness and its consequences aside, is that it produces organic changes in the system, by acting upon what medical men call the “microscopic tissues,” of which the whole human frame is made up; also poisoning the blood, which then, instead of being a healthy fluid coursing freely through the frame and invigorating the entire system, flows sluggishly, producing organic changes in the blood vessels, inducing various diseases according to the constitution and tendencies of the individual. Three of the most usual diseases to which the habitual dram drinker is subject are liver disease, fatty degeneration of the heart, and paralysis. There is not a medical student of three months’ experience who could not, if you entered a dissecting-room, point you out a “drunkard’s liver.” The moment he sees that object he knows at once that the wretched being to whom it belonged had, by continued indulgence in alcohol, ruined his constitution and health, and brought himself to an untimely end. There is another serious consequence arising from habitual drinking. Not only does the habit irreparably ruin the general health so that cure is impossible, but it induces insanity, and I believe I am not beyond the mark in stating that fifty per cent. at the least of the lunatics in our various asylums throughout the country have become insane from over-indulgence in alcohol. Dr. Pereira, in his celebrated Materia Medica, states that out of one hundred and ten cases occurring in male patients admitted into the Hanwell Lunatic Asylum in 1840, no fewer than thirty-one were ascribed to intemperance, while thirty-four were referred to combined causes of which intemperance was stated to be one; and yet Mr. Turner and his disciples say that spirit drinking is a lesser vice than opium smoking!

I need not remind you of the consequences to others besides the actual victims to spirit drinking, for that is unfortunately told too eloquently and but too vividly brought before us every day in the public newspapers. You will find that those acts of violence, those unfortunate cases that make one shudder to read, happening daily in this country—kicking wives, sometimes to death, beating and otherwise ill-using helpless children, violently attacking unoffending people in the streets—all are the results, more or less, of spirit drinking. Even the missionaries admit that opium smoking does not produce any of these evils. As I have said before, truth is natural to the human mind, and will reveal itself, even where it is not directly relevant to the purpose. Mr. Turner does not venture to dispute this in his book, and I would call your attention to the passage. He says on page 33:—

Even between drunkenness and opium smoking there are perceptible distinctions. We must allow that opium smoking is a much more pacific and polite vice. The opium sot does not quarrel with his mate nor kick his wife to death; he is quiet and harmless enough while the spirit of the drug possesses him.

That is all true so far as the fact goes, but if an insinuation is intended that the Chinaman gets violent after the effect of the drug has passed away, there is no foundation for it in fact. The Chinaman takes opium just because he likes it, and knowing it will act at once as a pleasing sedative and a harmless stimulant. A man who is working hard all day in a tropical climate, whether at bodily or mental work, finds, towards the close of the day, his nervous system in an unsettled state, and looks for a stimulant, and the most harmless and most effectual one he can find is the opium pipe. When opium and opium smoking are better understood—and I believe the subject is now but imperfectly known by most medical men in this country—I feel convinced that the faculty will largely prescribe opium smoking, not merely as a substitute for dram drinking, but as a curative agency, that in many cases will be found invaluable. In this I am borne out by an eminent medical authority, to whom I shall refer by-and-by. The regular and habitual opium smoker is seldom or never found to indulge in spirits at all. Stimulants of all kinds are so freely taken here that people never look upon them as a poison; but in point of fact they are a terrible poison, and a very active one, too. Another medical work of very great authority is that by Dr. Taylor.[7] It has always received the greatest attention in courts of law; and it is also held in the highest estimation by the medical profession. At page 315, under the head of “Poisoning by Alcohol,” he says:—

The stomach has been found intensely congested or inflamed, the mucous membrane presenting in one case a bright red, and in another a dark red-brown colour. When death has taken place rapidly, there may be a peculiar odour of spirits in the contents; but this will not be perceived if the quantity taken was small, or many hours have elapsed before the inspection is made. The brain and its membranes are found congested, and in some instances there is effusion of blood or serum beneath the inner membrane. In a case observed by Dr. Geoghegan, in which a pint of spirits had been taken and proved fatal in eight hours, black extravasation was found on the mucous membrane of the stomach; but no trace of alcohol could be detected in the contents. The action of a strong alcoholic liquid on the mucous membrane of the stomach so closely resembles the effect produced by arsenic and other irritants, as easily to give rise to the suspicion of mineral irritant poisoning. A drawing in the museum collection of Guy’s Hospital furnishes a good illustration of the local action of alcohol. The whole of the mucous membrane of the stomach is highly corrugated and is of a deep brownish-red colour. Of all the liquids affecting the brain this has the most powerful action on the stomach. A case of alcoholic poisoning of a child, æt. seven, referred to me by Mr. Jackaman, coroner for Ipswich, in July 1863, will serve to show the correctness of this remark. A girl was found at four o’clock in the morning lying perfectly insensible on the floor. She had had access to some brandy, which she had swallowed from a quartern measure, found near her empty. She had spoken to her mother only ten minutes before, so that the symptoms must have come on very rapidly. She was seen by Mr. Adams four hours afterwards. She was then quite insensible, in a state of profound coma, the skin cold, and covered with a clammy perspiration. There had been slight vomiting. The child died in twelve hours, without recovering consciousness, from the time at which she was first found.

So far Dr. Taylor, a most competent authority on the subject, as showing what a poison alcohol is. Now alcohol, as I have before mentioned, effects an organic change in the system, which opium, if smoked, or even if eaten does not; and when spirits are indulged in to a very considerable extent, the disease produced is absolutely incurable, because it is impossible for any medical skill to give a man new tissues, new blood, a new stomach, or a new liver, where the whole substance and material of all has undergone a complete and ruinous change. Now, the case as regards opium is totally different, because, no matter how much one may indulge in opium, whether in eating or smoking, the effects produced are always curable. This is so as regards opium eating; in respect to the infinitely less exciting practice of opium smoking, the rule applies with very much greater force. A man may smoke opium inordinately until, from want of appetite and impaired digestion, he seems sinking into the grave; he is, however, only labouring under functional derangement, which is always curable. The use of opium in any form produces no organic change in the system whatever. Excessive eating or smoking opium may impair the appetite and digestion, but that will be all. I have very competent medical authority for saying this. This fact places opium and alcohol in two entirely different categories. The one, if eaten in moderation, is, I believe, harmless, if not beneficial; while, as to the smoking of the drug, it is absolutely innocuous;—but if alcohol be freely though not inordinately used, it will prove, sooner or later, destructive to the system, acting upon the frame as a slow poison, which must eventually end, as experience shows, in ruin and death. De Quincey tells us in his Confessions that he ate opium with impunity for eighteen years, and that it was only after eight years abuse of opium eating that he suffered in any way from the practice.

I will now give you another extract from Dr. Pereira’s book. At page 446, under the heading “Consequences of Habitual Drunkenness,” he says:—

The continued use of spirituous liquors gives rise to various morbid conditions of system, a few only of the most remarkable of which can be here referred to. One of these is the disease known by the various names of delirium tremens, d. potatorum, oinomapria, &c., and which is characterized by delirium, tremor of the extremities, wakefulness, and great frequency of pulse. The delirium is of a peculiar kind. It usually consists in the imagined presence of objects which the patient is anxious to seize or avoid. Its pathology is not understood. It is sometimes, but not constantly, connected with or dependent on an inflammatory condition of the brain, or its membranes. Sometimes it is more allied to nervous fever. Opium has been found an important agent in relieving it. Insanity is another disease produced by the immoderate and habitual use of spirituous liquors.

Now I do not think that, much as they have abused opium smoking, any of the Anti-Opium writers have ever alleged insanity to be an effect or concomitant of opium smoking. It must therefore be taken as generally admitted that opium smoking, or even opium eating, does not produce insanity. We have, then, this undisputed fact, viz. that insanity and acts of violence do not result from opium smoking, whilst they are unquestionably produced by spirit drinking.

I had recently some conversation on the subject of opium with a medical friend who has been in large practice in London, for twenty years. I had previously spoken to him frequently on the same subject, and he has been kind enough to give me his views in a very interesting and concise manner. This opinion, I may tell you, is not paid for, or prepared merely to support a particular purpose, as in the case of trials in the law courts. It is purely spontaneous. We all know that professional men, whether doctors, lawyers, surveyors, and others, are all more or less prone to take the views of the party requiring their services, and they, accordingly, will give opinions more or less coinciding with those views. It does not, however, follow that the persons doing so are guilty of any moral wrong, or that they write or state what they do not believe to be true; on the contrary, they have a complete faith in the statements they make. The natural bent of the mind is to lean towards the views urged by one’s patient or client; and thus two physicians or lawyers of the highest standing and character will be found to hold different opinions. But this statement with which I have been furnished stands on an entirely different footing. There can have been no bias in the mind of the writer; it is simply the result of study and experience. I have the most perfect confidence in this gentleman’s opinions. He is Mr. William Brend, M.R.C.S. He says:—